During the past two years that my purple Rickshaw has been
my faithful everyday carry, I’ve always taken some other bag when I’ve traveled
because the Rickshaw just isn’t big enough for all the additional essentials
that travel requires. But taking an unfamiliar bag meant feeling disoriented –
nothing was where I expected it to be (as if travel isn’t disorienting enough).

Not this time! My beloved Rickshaw is coming with me to
Brazil, along with a simple tote for the rest – a sweet solution. As a result, the following are the only sketch-material-related
travel prep tasks I had to do this week:

I stitched up 10 signatures for the Stefano. Think that’s too many? I filled nine last year in Barcelona and Germany during a trip almost
as long. (I’m putting the signatures – along with inconvenient items such as
clothes – into my roller bag this afternoon; we’ll see if I have to leave a few
of those 10 behind.) (Edited 3:15 p.m.: They all fit! I may have to check a bag on the flight home, though.)

To avoid inky messes (like the one I got last month flying to L.A. because I forgot the lesson I learned two years ago), I filled my
fountain pens and ink-filled waterbrushes completely. This seems
counterintuitive – wouldn’t more ink in the reservoir allow for more leakage?
But at high altitudes, air expands, pushing the ink out. If a reservoir is
completely filled, there’s no air to expand, reducing the chance of leakage.
That’s the theory, anyway. (If that solution happens to fail, I put potentially
leaky pens and waterbrushes in a sealed plastic bag.)

The supply of watercolor paints, inks and other materials
that I carry every day should be sufficient for the duration of my trip, so I’m
not taking spares (last year I brought several ink cartridges that I never
used). The only exception is one spare cartridge of Platinum Carbon Black, because that’s probably difficult to find in
Brazil.

Driving on North 80th in Greenwood the past few
weeks, I’ve seen a gorgeous, colorful mural in progress on the wall of the Masonic Lodge building next door to Diva Espresso(which I’ve occasionally sketched from the inside).
A cherry picker was parked in the corner of Diva’s lot. I called Diva to find
out when the artist would be working, and I was told he was usually there after
3 p.m., so I made time to get over there around 3 today to catch him at work.

James Nielsen of
Oakland is the artist (“artist and sorcerer,” says his business card), and he
told me today is day 28 of his work (an assistant was also working today) on the Greenwood Masonic Lodge 253’s
commissioned mural, which shows the moon shining over Mt. Rainier, the Space
Needle and downtown Seattle with a dazzling rainbow of colors in the background. A large Masonic symbol is in the center. I thought of Gabi’s “meta-sketching” blog post as I sketched, feeling like my
watercolors were barely a shadow of the painting I was trying to depict. But I
had a lot of fun bringing out a full spectrum of hues (done with only a primary
triad of paints, no less!), which I rarely get an opportunity to do in typical
urban sketches.

James still has the bottom third or so of the mural left to
paint, but I’m glad I made the time to catch him today. At the rate he’s going,
he might be done by the time I’m back in town.

8/20/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink, Zig marker

Technical note: I’ve been using a Sailor calligraphy pen (or its uptown brother with an identical
nib, the Sailor Profit) almost
exclusively the past month or so, and I have not missed my conventional-nib
pens at all. I’m always learning how to best use that crazy nib, and I still
don’t have full control, but I’m having too much fun to care. One mild
frustration has been that to get the absolute finest line with it, I have to
tilt the nib at an unnaturally sharp angle that’s awkward to hold for very
long. I remembered that some fountain pen sketchers I know turn their nibs
upside-down to get a finer line, so I tried that with the Sailor, and voilà! I
can get a really line fine while holding it at a natural angle. My Sailor and I still have a lot of dancing to do!

When I was a kid, our neighborhood didn’t have any drive-in
restaurants, so when I visited cousins out in the ‘burbs, it was a serious
treat to go to places like Triple XXX Root Beer, order from the car and
then eat in the car. (Why parents thought this was a good idea is beyond me,
but I sure thought it was fun.) I think carhops on rollerskates was a little
before my time; I recall waitresses bringing our orders in shoes.

Most drive-in restaurants have been gone for decades, but
the Seattle area still has five Burgermasterlocations, including one just north of me on 100th and Aurora (only
a couple of blocks from where I sketched a tree a few months ago as I got blasted with grit and bus fumes). I’ve
been mostly vegetarian for 30 years, so burgers are not on my radar, but
driving by the other day, it suddenly occurred to me: It’s still there! According
to its website, “A Northwest landmark since 1952, BURGERMASTER offers quality,
cooked-to-order food from fresh ingredients, for those who value great taste
and excellent service.”

Certainly there are restaurants that have been around as
long or longer, but that drive-in
part is a rare novelty. It looked like most of the diners this afternoon had
parked their cars and eaten inside, but I did see a few cars parked out in the
stalls where orders are still brought out for in-car dining. I don’t know how
long the “Home of the Baconmaster” and its drive-in booths are going to be
around, so I thought today was as good a day as any to sketch them.

(Technical note: I finished a signature of my usual
sketchbook paper on Sunday, and I didn’t
want to start the next signature before I leave town because I’d like to start
a new one in Brazil, so I’ve been using an old Stillman & Birn Beta book this week. I’m still fond of the
paper (I’d still be using Betas now if I hadn’t discovered bookbinding), but I was surprised that I felt confined by the page size.
I’d gotten used to double-page spreads on 9-by-12-inch paper in my Stefano. The hardbound Beta, which is
8.5-by-10.75 inches opened up, is only an inch or so narrower, but I noticed
the difference. It’s funny how you get used to a certain format, and anything
smaller seems cramped.)

Monday, August 18, 2014

My hair was on fire today with a bunch of errands and
appointments that I had to get done before I leave town at the end of the week.
I didn’t really have time for a sketch, nor did I have a subject in mind. Then
on my way to an appointment, I spotted this on the sidewalk outside a church
I pass frequently in my neighborhood: The sad shell of an old piano missing all
of its keys, its cover, its front face and one of its pedals. Strings, hammers
and all the rest of its intricate innards were entirely exposed. The finish was
almost completely worn away, and parts of its once-ornate legs were broken off.

If I had thought about it for more than two seconds, I would
have realized that a piano is a perspective study that requires more than 15
minutes to sketch. I would also have realized that if I had taken the hour or
so I needed to sketch it carefully, it would have been a nice way to honor an old piano that had probably given many years of musical service to
the church – and was now on its way to the dump. But all that had occurred to me was that the piano might be gone by
tomorrow, and 15 minutes was all I had to give it.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Thick and white with fog, the sky over Shilshole Marina felt
a bit chilly this morning for mid-August, but a strong showing of Seattle Urban Sketchers was undaunted. Sure
enough, the sun came out within the hour, giving everyone good shadows and
warmth.

Before the fog lifted, I started with a sketch of “Son of
Iceland, Grandson of Norway” Leif Erikson. The original statue was a gift to Seattle from the Norwegian
American community during the 1962 World’s Fair. A new base and tribute were unveiled
in 2007. His helmet looked a bit Pope-ish until I corrected its tilt.

By the time the sky cleared, I had procrastinated long
enough: It was time to take on the formidable marina with its gazillions of
masts. I propped my stool up on top of a picnic table to get a better line of
sight. Putting Harris (sketching in the foreground) in first helped to ground
me. Then I put in the trawler, and then all the other masts behind it. Piece o’
cake! (Ha-ha.)

I had 10 minutes to kill before the sketchbook sharing, so I
sketched Peggysketching between her
bike and a food truck.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Last year at about this time, I coined a term for the season that comes between summer and
fall: Denial. It starts in early
August when I first notice the leaves starting to turn. It lasts for as long as possible.These slender maples growing in a traffic circle in the
Greenwood neighborhood are surely a fluke. Actually, the one on the left and
the one mostly hidden behind it are still fully green, so I think it’s only
the tree on the right that is a fluke. Clearly, it didn’t take enough vitamins
or skipped too many yoga classes this summer.

As an urban sketcher, I never know where I will be when the
urge to draw hits: running an errand, riding public transportation, or waiting
between appointments. To prepare for those times, I wanted to have a small,
lightweight sketchbook with me. I tried using premade pocket-sized notebooks,
but most couldn’t hold up to wet media. I realized that if I wanted a wet-media
sketchbooklet, I would have to make it myself.

Here are the steps for making them (the published article shortened
the steps somewhat; appearing here are the director’s cut, unabridged edition):

Note: The dimensions of my sketchbooklet were based on the 8
½" x 11" cardstock I had on hand. If you are using paper or cardstock
of a different size, you may want to change the dimensions of your booklet to
avoid waste. Cut one sheet of cardstock, 8 ½" x 5 ½", to make the
cover. Fold it in half to 4 ¼" x 5 ½".

Optional: Use a corner rounder punch to round all corners on
the sheets and cover. (Rounded corners are not purely esthetic; they also keep
the sketchbooklet from becoming dog-eared and ragged.)

Place one folded sheet of paper on a catalog, and open the
folded sheet. Make three marks for holes along the crease about 1 ¼", 2
5/8" and 4" from one edge. (Tip: I never measure – I just eyeball
it.) Using the awl, punch a hole at each mark.

Use the paper you punched in the previous step as a template:
Place the template sheet over one sheet, align the sheets carefully at the
folds, and punch through the template holes to the sheet underneath. Repeat
with each remaining sheet. (Tip: You can punch all the sheets at one time, but
it’s harder to keep them aligned at the fold.)

The cover is slightly larger than the pages. Align your
template sheet over the cover at the folds so that the margin of exposed cover
is the same on either side of the sheet (again, I just eyeball this rather than
measure). Punch the cover holes.

Stack all sheets together at the folds. Be sure to keep all
the sheets in the same orientation as when you punched them so that the holes
align. Place the cover around the sheets.

Cut a 10" length of bookbinding thread, and thread the
needle.

From the inside of the stack, sew through the center hole of
all sheets and the cover to the outside, and pull the thread until about
2" remain inside the book (you will tie this tail later).

The needle is now outside the book cover. Sew into either of
the remaining holes through the cover and all sheets. Pull until there’s no
slack in the thread, and then sew back through the center hole from inside to
outside. Pull the thread taut.

The needle is now outside the book cover again. Sew into the
last hole that has no thread in it yet. Pull taut. Tie a square knot with the
thread and the tail you left in Step 10. Trim the threads.

Friday, August 15, 2014

After all those consecutive days of beautiful sunshine, I
had deluded myself into thinking it was the new normal. I woke to drizzle, but
weather.com had predicted that the rain would stop by mid-morning, when the ad
hoc Friday sketchers were meeting at Gas Works Park.

Perched on my stool under a tree for my first sketch of some
of the gas works, I was still in denial as increasingly frequent raindrops
blurred my Platinum Carbon Black lines.
By 11 it was barely spitting, so a few of us walked over to the marina on the
east side of the park to sketch the houseboats, and I insisted that the rain
would be stopping soon. I looked out over Lake Union and immediately saw a
challenging Shari Blaukopf
assignment for myself: the reflections of the moored houseboats and dappled
water. The rain did let up as I was drawing the houseboat on the right, but
within minutes I had to pull my hood on again, and my sketch was starting to
take on that dreamy look (or perhaps nightmare, depending on your perspective).
The wet-on-wet-on-wet approach isn’t one of my favorite watercolor techniques.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

I first learned about Moolast year when bloggers preparing for the Urban Sketching Symposium in Barcelona were showing off the cards
they had printed by the online company. Especially popular were the
double-sided, 2.75-by-1.10-inch Moo MiniCards. I was tempted to do the same, but I never got around to it.
Instead, I simply printed a stack of conventional-size business cards with my
self-portrait, contact information and Urban Sketchers info (the same cards I hand out when I’m
sketching and someone asks me about Urban Sketchers). They didn’t have sketches
printed on them, so they weren’t as cool as MiniCards, but it was still fun to
exchange them at the symposium.

This year I recently started seeing Moo cards again on blogs
I read, and I felt tempted again. Why not order a stack of Moo MiniCards, too? I
picked out several sketches that I thought would reproduce relatively well in a
tiny format and started going through the Moo site. Then it struck me: Why don’t
I print them myself the same way I print my usual cards?

Shown at lower right is the front of the cards (I have both portrait
and landscape formats) printed with my Bitstrips-like self-portrait (done without the app, of course) and contact info. The backs
are printed with several sketches that best represent my hometown and the kind
of sketching I like to do. It took me only a few minutes to print them on my
inkjet printer (although cutting them apart with my paper trimmer took quite a
few more minutes). I used matte-finish card stock that I bought at Office
Depot.

A friend (you know who you are) once affectionately called
me “the Martha Stewart of urban sketching.” I wanted to deny it. But I guess I
can’t.

The yellow Komatsu was my original sketch subject. When I
started, the operator wasn’t even inside, so I figured I had some time to get
it. Before I knew what was happening, the Komatsu turned around and moved a
short distance away, and the red machine, which had an auger on its business
end, moved into place. Meanwhile another yellow Komatsu was in the background
(you can see part of its shovel behind the STOP sign).

I was feeling frustrated because I knew I wouldn’t be able
to finish any of the machines before they moved. But I’ve learned from
sketching people and zoo animals that they tend to eventually go back to the
same positions. And so it was with this intricate, noisy ballet of heavy
equipment, each doing its job for a few minutes, then moving away to make room for
the next one, then returning. Instead of turning the page each time, I decided
to turn this into a “sketchbombed” composite.

Speaking of sketchbombs, the worker holding the STOP sign
had come by to see what I was doing. “Hey, how come I’m not in it?” he quipped.
So I put him in.

The off and on rain we’d been having today looked like it
was finally off for a while. After working most of the day and then spending
too much time loading music onto my smartphone and managing other first-world
problems, I took a short walk to Maple Leaf Park. The two maples, the poplar,
the iconic water tower, the playground – I’ve sketched them all
before, but they all seemed fresh and lively compared to anything I do on the
computer.

I hate to say it – dare I say it? – but I’ve been seeing
tiny hints of orange and yellow in the topmost leaves of the maples and aspens.

Monday, August 11, 2014

When the previous owner lived in the house across the street,
the small Chinese windmill palm in their front yard wasn’t doing well. Brown
and shriveled, it looked like it was at death’s door. But after Joe and Heidi
moved in, the tree perked up and has looked green and beautiful ever since. When
a slight wind makes its fan-like fronds shiver, it’s fascinating and a bit hypnotic
to watch.

Unlike the tall, mop-headed ones I’ve sketched in L.A. and Las Vegas, these palms don’t mind the cool, wet weather we get
around here most of the year, so they aren’t as tropical as they seem. Still,
fanning slowly in the high heat (it’s been in the 80s and now 90s daily for the
past few weeks – very unusual for Seattle), they make me feel like I’ve traveled
somewhere a little exotic. The first time I sketched a windmill palm, it was last year in front of a defunct restaurant nearby that had had a tropical theme. A few months later I
sketched another one in my neighborhood. (These trees are especially fun to sketch with a Sailor calligraphy pen!)

Saturday, August 9, 2014

The “No Parking” signs up and down the block were a clue. So
were the two new utility poles lying on the ground in front of the houses
across the street. I skipped my Jazzercise class because I had a feeling some
interesting action was going to take place this morning. I was not
disappointed.

8/9/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi and Fuyu-syogun inks, Zig marker

Shortly after 9 a.m., two large yellow vehicles showed up
from Seattle City Light (my favorite bright yellow Zig marker has been getting
quite a workout these days; it’s the ideal shade of heavy-equipment yellow). I went out on our tiny front deck outside
our bedroom and looked down, where one of the yellow vehicles was sucking all
the dirt from the hole that workers had dug next to the existing utility pole.
Meanwhile another worker poured something – water? – into the hole from a hose (above).

The next part happened so fast that I couldn’t sketch much
of it: an amazing choreography as the second yellow vehicle (I wish I knew the
name of it. . . is it a type of crane?) lifted the new pole off the ground and
turned it around – without knocking into the tangle of utility lines,
trees or our house!

Mesmerized watching all the smooth, well-practiced movements,
I cringed when the pole got really close to those wires. The pole was very
quickly put into place right next to the existing pole (at right), the hole refilled with
dirt, and they were done – at least with that pole.

Next they moved down the block a few yards, where they used a
slightly different process to dig. This time they used a huge auger on the end
of the same yellow vehicle (at left). (Greg found out later that they had to dig the hole
manually for the pole in front of our house because it was too close to a gas
main to use the auger.) The dirt that came up from the auger was dumped out onto
a tarp that was laid out beside the hole.

As they moved the second new pole into place, again right
next to the old pole, I sketched the equipment operator (below left), because I think he was the hero
of the whole operation. I was so impressed by his skill in maneuvering the long
business end of that machine.

Finally the workers shoveled the dirt that came out of the
hole back in (bottom), and they were done. In a little more than two hours, they had installed two new power poles, and I had the most sketching fun I’ve ever had
while still wearing my slippers.

Scheduling today’s Friday ad hoc sketch outing at Kubota Garden was prompted by an event
Kate saw on the garden’s website: “Rock, People, Chisels,” an Ishigaki (stone
wall) workshop. I didn’t pay much attention to that event because I knew from a
previous visit years ago that the garden itself would be a delight to sketch,
and any additional event would be frosting on the cake. As it turned out, I
spent the whole time on the “frosting” and decided that the “cake” – the 20
acres of beautifully landscaped gardens – could wait for a future visit.

As soon as we walked onto the property, I realized something
big was going on: A huge yellow crane no different from the kind I’ve been sketching at construction sites rose ominously
above the gardens. I soon understood that the “rocks” these people were
chiseling were actually huge boulders – 500 tons of granite that would be cut
and turned into an 8-foot wall built with a 10,000-year-old dry-stone stacking
method. Fifteen stonemasons had traveled from all over the country and Japan to
work on the project with Junji and Suminori Awata, 14th and 15th
generation stonemasons and masters of their craft. They use the same techniques
that were used to build Japanese castles before the 16th century.
The wall they are building will become Kubota Garden’s Terrace Overlook.

All of that is very interesting, but as soon as I saw the stonemason
team at work, I took a “sketch-first,-ask-questions-later” approach. (I learned
what they were doing afterwards during a break.) Despite the constant
clink-clink-clinking of chisel on stone and the swirls of dust set off by
masons blowing excess debris through a straw, I was sucked in immediately by
their activity. As their painstaking work continued, a master would
occasionally come by to make suggestions or demonstrate a technique.

Eventually the crane started rotating into action, moving
boulders around, so for my second sketch, I walked around the pond to the
opposite side of the site. My sketch viewpoint is just a short distance from
the view in the architect’s conceptual image below, which shows what the completed
terrace will look like next spring.

We had a great turnout of sketchers on this gorgeous day,
including several new faces!

Thursday, August 7, 2014

The last time Natalie and I sketched together from her deck
(I call it her en plein air studio),
it was the spring equinox, and the sky was full of luscious, dramatic clouds that were so much fun to paint.

Not so today – the sky was mostly cloudless, at least facing east
over Lake Washington, so I had to settle for sketching a tree with the placid
water behind it. On the other hand, today I could sit out there for hours in a
T-shirt; in March, I wore Polartec. No complaints here! Especially when Natalie
pointed out the bald eagle flying by and when I spotted a hummingbird lighting
on a nearby bush several times.

Technical note: A potted snapdragon plant slightly past its
prime was an excellent subject for sketching with my trusty Sailor pen filled with DeAtramentis Moss Green ink. That pen was made for drawing the thick and thin
lines of leaves.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Maybe my expectations are too high; I keep thinking that
with all the noise, dust and movement at the Roosevelt Station site, I’m going to see the beginnings of actual
buildings or something. I moved to a slightly different location this time to see
something new, but as the traffic controller’s sign says, progress is SLOW.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

My oldest brother was a toddler, and our mom was pregnant
with my second brother when they and our dad were taken away to spend the
duration of World War II in internment camps. Born quite a few years after their
experience, I didn’t hear much about that period of their lives from my
parents, who preferred not to dwell on the past. Most of what I know about that
sad, dark part of U.S. history was learned the way everyone now learns about it
– from books, recorded oral histories, documentaries and art exhibits like the
one currently showing at the Bellevue Arts Museum: The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942 – 1946.

Imprisoned behind barbed wire in desolate locations, living
in horse stalls or drafty, unplumbed barracks, more than 100,000 Americans had
to learn to endure (the word gaman
means “to endure the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”). Many
found that creating art or building functional pieces helped them endure, and
this exhibit showcases 120 such artifacts. Toys, chairs, jewelry, paintings –
the objects ranged from simple objects of utility to exquisite works of art. My
favorite was a collection of letter envelopes, each with a small watercolor
sketch that someone had made to decorate it. I also enjoyed peeking at a page
in a sketchbook of someone who was learning the craft of bonsai – tiny sketches
of tiny trees with neatly written notes. Sadly, many of the artifacts were
attributed to “unknown.” (A cherished artifact in my own home is a wood tray my
grandfather had made during that time.)

8/5/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink

I didn’t spend much time sketching at the exhibit because I
was too busy reading all the placards and viewing the objects. I did sketch a
small ironwood sculpture of a lion carved by Shigeo Naito, who was interned in
Poston, Arizona. An informative documentary was playing on a video screen, so I
also sketched a couple viewing it.Updated 8/15/14: A similar exhibit in Portland, Art Behind Barbed Wire, includes a few pieces my grandfather and father made. My brother Richard is interviewed about the exhibit on the Oregon Public Broadcast's blog.

Monday, August 4, 2014

During my walk around Green Lake today, I spotted anotherPiano in the Park! This one looked like an old-fashioned robot with
metallic arms and big blue hands made of utility gloves. (I’m not sure why, but
the sides of the piano were painted with things like an ostrich and other
birds. I suspect that more than one artist had a vision for this piano.)

A number of people stopped by to play it briefly. Heart and Soul seems to be the runaway favorite among casual piano players. Often
it was kids banging around for a minute or two, like the girl in my sketch who
was still draped in a towel from her swim like a caped superhero.

A young man was hovering around the piano as I finished that
sketch, a bit hesitant. I walked a short distance away, and he sat down to
play. I had the feeling he had played well at some point, but work or other
obligations had kept him away from the keys, and he was rusty. He reminded me
of all the people I’ve chatted with while out sketching – people who watch me
sketch wistfully for a while and then tell me they “used to draw” at some time
in their lives but haven’t in years or decades. It’s never too late, I tell
them. Maybe this piano at Green Lake will inspire the young man to find a way
to make time for playing again.

Maybe sketchbooks should be left in public places to inspire
former sketchers, too.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Last week I sketched a Little Free Library a few blocks northin my neighborhood, and I knew about
a second one within walking distance. I grabbed a couple of unneeded
books to contribute from my over-bulging bookshelves and walked a couple blocks
east.

The simple library box near the intersection of Northeast 80th
and Roosevelt Way Northeast was the intended focus of my sketch, but what
really caught my eye was the “tree” growing up behind it. A tall cylinder of
CDs sprouted several wire branches of CD “leaves.”

Recently Larry Marshall blogged about his sketching goals – the things that motivate him
as a sketcher – and he asked readers what motivates them. I realized I have
done a lot of thinking about this subject myself, but I had never consolidated
and articulated my thoughts into a blog post. His post prompted me to do that.

These are my sketching goals, in general order of priority:

1. Have fun. If it stops being fun,
I’ll stop doing it. Life is way too short to have a hobby that doesn’t fill me
with joy. That said, I’m not unwilling to challenge myself and work hard while
having that fun. For example, when I’m struggling with a difficult perspective
study, I don’t necessarily think of that as “fun,” but some forms of intellectual
challenge are, indeed, enjoyable (in a masochistic sort of way).

2. Document my life by sketching the life
around me. This is essentially my interpretation of the parts of the Urban Sketchers manifesto that mean the
most to me: capturing what I see from direct observation; telling the
stories of where I live and travel; being truthful to the scenes I
witness.

3. In the interest of No. 2 above, speed and efficiency trump
accuracy and beauty. I would love to develop my watercolor skills to
the point where every sketch looked like a mini-painting. But if that were my
focus, I think I would miss a lot of the world going on around me that requires
greater speed and efficiency to keep up with. Capturing the moment is more
important to me than making a “good” sketch. While buildings and trees make
good painting models, people, animals and vehicles move and go away. In
addition, I rarely travel alone, and I want the people I travel with not to be
burdened by my sketching. I’d rather capture the moment quickly so that we can
move on rather than feel frustrated that my companions won’t give me time to
sketch.

4. In the interest of both Nos. 2 and 3 above, sketch
quickly without rushing. There’s a big difference between fast and
hurried. I sometimes feel hurried and rushed, so I do both, and I rarely like
the sketch that results. But if I relax, focus and work quickly, the sketch
comes out much better. Sketching quickly takes no more time than rushing.

5. Improve my skills – both my ability to
render accurately and my overall compositions. I have some conflict
putting this goal after Nos. 3 and 4 above. I realize that when I slow down, I’m
more likely to improve my skills than when I speed up. If I believe speed
trumps accuracy, then I’m unlikely to learn to draw more accurately. But I do
care about becoming a more accurate renderer. And I’ve heard from more than one
source that a strong composition is 90% of a successful sketch. So I do think
about accuracy and composition, study the sketches of others, take occasional
workshops and read many books to gain skills. But not all of the time.

I have one more goal, but I’ll get to that in a moment. First,
while I’m in this introspective mood, I’ll add a couple more thoughts.

What frustrates me most about sketching:

My growth is sporadic and not continual. During my first month
as a blogger in March 2012, I mused about this very subject. “I want a straight upward trajectory, not a horizon
of gently rolling hills,” I whined. Now, more than two years later, my whine
hasn’t changed. I might make my best sketch ever, and then later that same day,
make a total dud. I can see gradual progress over time, but then I’ll make a
sketch that sets me back several months. I feel like I learn from each sketch I
make; why, then, doesn’t that learning get applied directly to the next one,
every time?

My greatest sketching fear:

Obviously I don’t fear revealing sketches I find fault with;
I do it regularly on this blog. I don’t fear criticism, either (my years as a
writer, both creative and commercial, toughened my skin). My greatest (perhaps
only) sketching fear is that I will eventually hit a plateau and stop
seeing any change or progress. Perhaps realistically, I can’t expect to
improve forever. But that fear is there.

Which brings me to my final goal, which has no numerical
priority because it’s more like an over-riding philosophy:

Sketch every day. If speed is in direct conflict with accuracy,
then just make more sketches, because accuracy is bound to improve with
practice. If today’s sketch is a total dud, then make another one tomorrow,
which might (probably will) be better. If I haven’t seen improvement in weeks
or months and I fear I’m hitting a plateau, then go into denial by sketching
some more. If something is fun, do it every day. I’m convinced that quantity
trumps quality.

The vast park is filled with mostly abstract stone, iron,
steel and earthwork sculptures, some of which are gigantic and many of which
are still in progress. Many also seemed to be made of found parts – pieces that
once belonged to machines or other industrial mechanical works. I spotted a well-corroded
but still-bright yellow crane (with Phyllis sketching next to it), which had
clearly seen many years of hard work. My only questions: Was this piece of
heavy equipment a functioning part of the sculpture park? Or was it now a work
of art?

As I was sketching it, sculptor Hank Nelson wandered by, so
I asked the questions. It turned out this isn’t art at all – it’s still a
highly functioning piece of equipment needed to move the large, heavy works.

I didn’t want to leave the park without sketching at least
one of the actual sculptures at this fascinating outdoor gallery, so before our
sketchbook sharing, I quickly sketched another artist working on a carved stone
piece.

One piece I sketched earlier in the day in Langley was
clearly a sculpture: the work of Georgia Gerber, a local bronze sculptor. The 1986 piece called Boy and Dog had been “dressed” with foil headgear!